The catalyst for my entering town politics, as a newcomer and relative unknown, has its roots in my "fixer upper" house. I have a leaky roof under a deck in the back of the building, which apparently has been a problem for about the last 20 years. While I was mulling over the option of enclosing the deck, extending the main roof to cover it and where I would get money to do that, we passed a dramatic set of changes to the Land Use Ordinance, representing 50 pages of elaborate new rules. That particular vote saw only 672 total votes cast, and the measures which now prevents me from proceeding passed by only 305 votes.
In the most recent "Comprehensive Plan" for Bar Harbor the sponsors are proud of the fact that 250 people participated in their summer "visioning sessions" which lead to the document's creation. One of the next statistics in that plan is that about 500 people have moved to Bar Harbor in the past 10 years. One interpretation of these numbers is that half of the people who moved here in the past 10 years are now trying to change the town to suit their own vision of things.
Obviously that is an over simplification, but relying too heavily on any compilation of statistics runs the risk of missing the bigger picture and may lead to inaccurate conclusions. I doubt that many Lobster Fishermen were present at the visioning sessions, nor those of us "working class" folk who have to work all summer to pay our bills for the year. The bigger picture here is that over the years many waves of newcomers have come to this town, drawn by the simpler way of life, closeness to nature, and small town living. The more recent waves over the past 10, 20, and 30 years are no different. There is an unconscious tendency to try to shape our new home here in Bar Harbor to match expectations based on places we have lived before. City dwellers move here and unwittingly bring the urban or suburban mindset with them.
With each wave of changes to the Land Use Ordinance entire neighborhoods in Bar Harbor – quaint, picturesque, homey – become "non-conforming properties" according to this increasingly urban mindset. Although the town came about as a result of neighbors building as they saw fit, and doing so right to the edge of their property line, with the suburban mentality we are not just governing our own lives but now trying to tell neighbors what they must and must not do. If all the parcels in downtown Bar Harbor's Residential District I were re-drawn and re-built according to this new urban mindset and all the recent changes to the Town Charter, what you would wind up with is "Suburbia By The Sea", not a picturesque New England town.
It is to some extent a modern "Pilgrims and Indians". I doubt that most European settlers coming to the "new world" held any particular grudge against the indigenous Americans when they came. One would probably not have to dig too far to find quotes from that era explaining that the newcomers were merely trying to share their greater literacy and education, advanced technology, and greater wealth with the natives, that the natives simply did not understand the value of what was being offered to them, and that once they were forced to adapt to the influx that they would one day be grateful for the good influence.
Those among us who are fortunate enough to be able to retire or move to Bar Harbor with savings and means to enjoy a comfortable life without the necessity of working (may work to keep busy, because they enjoy it, or to supplement what they already have), should make no mistake. You are in a position to be more politically active – voting, attending meetings, serving on various committees and boards – and because of your luxury of available time you will exert a disproportional influence over the community. Take heed from the example of the European settlers and the Native Americans, do not kid yourself that you can make radical changes adding new levels of complexity to a system and still preserve that same system. You cannot burn a village to save a village.
I recognize that I too am a newcomer and a relative unknown. I was born in Washington, D.C. on September 11th, 1960. When I was 10 I lived for a year in a small Thai village (population of around 400 people, no electricity, running water, or paved roads – life as it has been lived for millennia). As a teenage computer wiz I foolishly dropped out of High School and had to learn the hard way the value of credentials in the working world. I am fortunate to have aptitude for technology, and started my consulting practice in the 80's while living in California, and supported myself for many years doing a mixture of computer consulting and software engineering (I have written commercial software including a project of over 25,000 lines of C and assembly language programming). Prior to moving to Bar Harbor I was fortunate enough to step back from worldly existence and return to Thailand where I observed Thai traditional and temporarily ordained as a Buddhist monk ("bhikkhu"), and spent 3 years in practice before returning to lay life. While in the role of an ascetic wandering monk I traveled on foot for hundreds of miles through numerous rain forests and encountered many Thai and hill tribe communities, witnessing functioning small communities, and those being overtaken by modern influences. After "taking leave of the teachings" (a translation of the Thai expressions for return to lay life) I moved to Bar Harbor in 2004, drawn by the proximity to the forest (I knew of Bar Harbor because my Dad lives in Brewer, and I had visited maybe 4 or 5 times since my mother's death in 1991).
My perspective is unusual, having lived in big cities, small towns, and even pre-industrial parts of a developing nation. Small communities work through neighbors talking to each other. They break down when regulation is used as a substitute. Rules are necessary, but the ones with real merit are those that follow the guiding principle "be good to others". Buddhism -- and other belief systems -- teach that "desire is the root cause of discontent". It is important to bear this in mind when trying to make changes to a working community. The "drawbridge syndrome" we see in Bar Harbor -- wanting to pull up the drawbridge after we get here so we aren't overrun by others coming here – is human nature. Ironically if someone else had pulled up the drawbridge we would not be here.
I vehemently oppose moves to turn Bar Harbor into a gated community. This trend is destructive to the year round community, and especially to the working class folk who serve the community and actually make it a community and not just a seasonal amusement park. I hope to remind everyone that it is not sufficient to proclaim support for "affordable housing" but then say "not in my backyard". In 2005 we passed a referendum enabling property owners to have more living units on their property for "affordable housing", a worthy goal. In 2006 (as a part of that sweeping 50 pages of changes and increased complexity) we passed rules reducing the allowed density, effectively negating the affordable housing measure. The solution to incomplete or inadequate rules is *not* to pass more rules (think of the rhyme "there was an old lady who swallowed a fly"). Now there is talk of more sweeping changes to rules in Town Hill to turn it into a gated community. Ironically "Indian Point" is in that neighborhood. It seems to me the pilgrims are about to run the rest of the Indians off, if they have not done so already.
Although obviously different in how it carries out instructions, a legal system or town government can in fact be described as a "finite state machine" just as a computer can, and some of the same rules of good design apply. The popular misconception about programming is that you just figure everything out, write it all down, and if you planned enough and wrote enough it will all work. The truth is 75% of a programmer's time is spent debugging. Not creating new rules, but simplifying and removing dead wood. I read a book in the late 80's by Dr. Boris Bezier's called "Software Testing Techniques and System Design". The rule of thumb he offers is approximately one bug per 100 lines of code. Think of the lines of instructions as moving parts, and it intuitively makes sense. If this is confusing, just remember the engineering K.I.S.S. axiom "Keep It Simple [and] Stupid". Growth and change are inevitable and we cannot always "cure" that with more rules or more committees and boards. Let me offer another old adage -- one of my favorite quotes -- "an elephant is a horse designed by committee". Greater complexity does not ensure better design.
So this is how I went from a leaky roof to a run for town council as an unknown newcomer. Seeing things from the perspective of a fresh set of eyes, I believe we will best serve the viability of our year round community by slowing down this runaway increase in complexity of building codes and zoning laws. We should be encouraging neighbors to solve their differences by talking to each other instead of complaining to the town office. Whether we are creating computer programs, land use rules, or a cookbook, we will achieve our best results by keeping the design simple and to the point.
Copyright © 2009 J. N. Riley Jr., All rights reserved.
[last edited 2009-06-06 5:05 PM]
